If he is going to fly J a lot on CX, perhaps you can consider CX Gold:
* Unless he is doing a annual MR, he may not be able to keep his OW-EM status. If he cannot keep it up, he may lose first class lounge accesses anyway.
* While he cannot have seat guarantee on J, he can have a high waitlist priority on CX. With CX J often full these days, a high priority can be helpful.
* If he flew 30K already on CX/KA last year, you can try to see if CX can comp him Silver from his pre-18 flights. That moves him ahead pretty fast already.
* Lounges in US are not comparable to those in Asia. There are very few first class lounges (e.g. AA's Flagship lounges) in the US. And these lounges are not really good anyway. So having access to business lounges, such as the Admirals Club, should be good enough.

Unfortunately whilst I can find a few references to DM+, I can't find out what it is exactly and what requirements there are to get it. I assume it is based on spend like PPS?

I'm sure he'll want to make Diamond within the year he makes Gold, but I agree with you! ^

I believe you need to accumulate over 300,000 Club miles. :)

Ouch! I would expect a significant amount of extra benefits for flying that many miles with CX - that said, it sounds suspiciously similar to LH's HON status which is the hardest status to get, but clearly provides the most benefits.

Like what, for example?

No - 300K miles is nothing if you fly Y. Diamond Plus is granted to DMs who are in the top 1% in terms of revenue generated to CX, which translates to about nine full-fare F HKG-JFK round trips every year.

Further discussion here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=602408

300,000 miles in Y? Nothing?

You have got to be kidding.

You would certainly end up with a rather sore posterior! :p

That links goes to a thread discussing getting Silver Medallion status on DL...... :confused:

Sorry, here it is:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=602408

:D

Hey, I'm named in that thread! :)

Is DMP status lifetime or do you lose it if you stop flying that much?

Lifetime - I doubt that - that is so "unCathay". At least I doubt whether they will advertise that.

I think Kchika meant that to CX flying 300K in whY miles was nothing rather than the to the poor pax. I wonder in the ranks of the super fliers on FT (i.e. > 200K miles pa how many do that in whY...

I know I don't. :)